An American Wake

It's amazing, when you start following up your family history, how many world events which you might have learned about in your school history suddenly become personal.

The First World War is a typical one of these. Almost everybody in Ireland who starts out tracing their family history, from rabid Republicans to West Brits, will find some relation somewhere who went to war. Some families will come up with a clatter of them. WWI had an insatiable hunger for cannon fodder.

Another event, whose 100th anniversary is coming up, is the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912. You can see the impact of this event on a sample local community, the Mayo village of Lahardane, on that community's commemorative website.


These were times of large families and high emigration, much of it to America (USA and Canada). Emigrants tended to cluster. That is to say, those from a particular parish would emigrate together as a group. When tragedy occurred it then had a disproportionate effect on certain communities. A good example in the case of the Titanic was the village of Lahardane in the parish of Addergoole, from where a group of 14 went on the Titanic; only 3 survived.

While none of those who left might ever have come back anyway, hence the "American Wake", the emigrant was never completely lost to the local community. There were always letters from America, which would be passed around all those mentioned in them. There were food and clothes parcels, which kept many a family going in times of hardship. And, of course, the remittances: money sent home when the emigrants got established in their new country. In Ireland's case there was even a special line in the national accounts for emigrants' remittances, and it was a significant line even in macro economic terms.


When it came to crossing the Atlantic, my family was more fortunate than some of those in Addergoole. My aunt Jane sailed from Cobh in 1908 on the White Star Line's then flagship the Baltic. At the time, this was the largest ship afloat, just as the Titanic was to be 4 years later.

Unlike the Titanic, the Baltic made it, and was one of the ships which radioed the Titanic an ice warning on the day the latter sank.

Jane was accompanied by a group from Ballyhaunis, her home town, and not a thousand miles from Lahardane. She settled in New York and had family, some of whom did come back to Ireland and visit. She was one of the lucky ones.

Where is it? No. 9

Solution

Above the balcony on the building immediately to the north of the Gresham Hotel on O'Connell St. It is now Teddy's bar at ground level.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Busted Flush

Bertie Bowl

Extra Cool

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The above is one of the earliest versions of my website homepage (as opposed to my blog). The only thing older than that was a plain page with a list of links on it. The above dates from 2004 and I suppose you would describe it as clunky. It probably served its purpose when the amount of material on the site was small and it didn't stand out as too primitive in its day.

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By 2006 the material had expanded and this was then presented behind the expanded category headings in the left column. Meanwhile the centre column concentrated on drawing particular attention to a smaller number of items.

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An attempt was made later that year to drop the clunk, but the design wasn't great and the site lacked impact. One significant branding improvement was the use of the actual site name, which Nora had originally suggested as a combination of my own name and one of my hobbies.

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By 2008 Nora had taken a serious look at my attempts at layout and this led to a major qualitative leap in design. The site now had a clean and professional look. She worked the site name into a proper banner heading. The content of the site had expanded considerably, so access was through an expanded set of headings in the left column and the centre column was used to draw attention to new items and updates of older ones.

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or here to go direct to the site
Finally, Nora suggested dropping the text from the centre column and substituting a photo. Losing all that text space appalled me at first but I got used to it and it increased the impact on the visitor enormously.

I did think, however, that any regular visitors might just get bored with the one picture all the time, so I organised it to cycle through a series of photos, with a new one for each day of the month. The same cycle of photos is then repeated each month. At the moment they are Dublin photos but I have the possibility of substituting others, either of Dublin or elsewhere or on a particular theme.

STUDIES

I was at a book launch in Newman House the other day.

In the course of his speech, John Bruton made a throw-away remark: "Does anyone remember Louis Smith?"

My answer is most definitely "yes".

Louis was one of my professors in UCD in the 1960s. A bit over my head but a very nice man. I had to make a call on his honesty after I had left UCD and during my "confessions" with the Rector of the College of Europe, Henri Brugmans. Fortunately I made the right call.

But Louis was not as dull as some of his lectures might have led one to believe. He had a good sense of humour and below is a photo of him taking his place among the saints on his own personal island in Paris.


Sad Update: Louis died 25/11/2012. RIP

BANG

I was walking along Merrion Row, minding my own business, when the above mural caught my eye.

My first reaction was to wonder who would paint a mural so high up on a side wall in a side lane. My second reaction was to wonder what graffiti merchant would bother to climb up so high to deface it.

When I got home I checked it out. In the first place, it is not defaced. It is meant to be like that from the beginning. In fact the blank faced aristocrat also appears in other parts of town. In the second place, the complete mural was painted by a man who started out as a graffiti artist and is now busy establishing himself as an artist, tout court.

He is Conor Harrington, originally from Cork and now living in London. And this is what the piece would look like if you could see it close up and on the level.



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The Jerrybird

I always thought birds were great builders - ingenuity, persistence, attention to detail. I have watched them over the years collecting twigs to build their nests and siting these in the most amazing places.

But now? Clearly even the birds have been affected by the hubris of the property boom and like some builders have taken their eye off the ball and started cutting corners.

The nest above, a pretty massive one, had parted company with its host tree and come crashing down among the daffodils on St. Patrick's day.

If I were a cuckoo I would get a professional survey done before I dropped my eggs in anyone else's nest in the future.

You just can't trust anyone anymore.

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Taxing Test

The sub who headlined this item in the Irish Times (15/3/2012) has either discovered a new Tax or is implying that taking assets into account in the award of student grants is equivalent to imposing a Tax.

The text of the report does not mention the word Tax. Rather it describes an Assets Test that the Minister proposes to introduce in order to correct a bias in the award of student grants to farmers and the self-employed.

I suppose we are unlikely to get any explanation from the paper of record

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Can't be Trusted

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I know why, a purely technical point. But it is a bit un-nerving when you are trying to get to the Government website and even your browser tells you they can't be trusted.

Reminds me of the time I tried to go to the Taoiseach's (Bertie) site in work on valid business and Websense wouldn't let me in on the grounds of the site's inappropriate sexual content. Again a technical point that could be explained.

Nevertheless, these things pull you up with a start. What was Bertie up to? Why can't the Government be trusted? And this coming from the dogs in the street, or more precisely the fox in your browser.

And me sitting here with me tongue in me cheek.

Stirring times.

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More Thunder

Plans are afoot to do a repeat of last Easter's mammoth bible reading in All Saints church (CofI) in Raheny.

You can read a report of last year's reading here and get further information on this year's proposed reading on the CofI website.

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Some mothers ...

I'm all in favour of simplicity. I'm all in favour of communication.

But I didn't quite know what to make of this sign outside Magner's pharmacy in Killester, in Dublin 3.

It seemed innocuous enough, even the sting in the tail. Until, that is, I substituted the word father for mother. Not quite the same resonance. So is it a patronising ad?

You decide.

And don't forget Mother's Day (Ireland) is on 18th March (next Sunday).

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